As a professional developer and consultant, the laptop is as much a socio-economic statement as a working tool, so I'm a big fan of "top of the line minus one" or last year's top of the line for best bang for the buck, longevity and reliability. We went shopping at a couple of the Big Box stores to actually hold a couple of machines in hand and be reminded that cheap feels cheap and if you can't type 80 wpm, you're wasting the most valuable component in the process.
I just recently picked up a Thinkpad T590 for an associate, and it is one slick piece of hardware. You won't do Levovo, so... never mind. (ProTip for others: watch for wicked sales!) Dell would be my second choice. Depending on the use case of what exactly it is your users do, you may get by with one of the lesser models, but I strongly prefer Lattitudes and won't buy another Precision no matter how good a deal it appears, not PC-compatible. 15.6" 1080p is pretty much required for these old eyes, and UHD and 4K is just a waste of little pixels for my use case. SSDs make a lot of sense for speed, weight and less noise and if everything's on the network or the internet, 128 Gb SSD is just as good as a 1TB HDD. Since I run Linux, I strongly prefer Intel video but that's just me. Re: CPUs: let me say again, depends upon the apps they run, but a 4-core i5 of recent vintage keeps up with all I do on the desktop. It would be slow if you ran AutoCAD, edited videos, rendered 3-D, and compiled kernels, but most people browse, word-process, email and do data-entry, so... You can't buy too much RAM. On Thu, Aug 15, 2019 at 11:31 AM Ken Dibble <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > I'm finding it's getting really difficult to find a non-customized > laptop that meets my agency's requirements. Granted, I'm pretty > picky, though I am somewhat flexible on the potential trade-offs involved. > > Many of you use quite nifty hardware so I thought you might have some > ideas. > > I need it to be non-customized because I'm being required to purchase > through a MWBE vendor. (This is New York State, USA.) These vendors > generally refuse to provide customizations; in fact, most of them > just buy stuff off the rack from established electronics retailers > and mark it up (don't get me started....) > > First, I won't do Lenovo or HP or Surface. > > I prefer ASUS or Acer, as I've had good experience with them. I'd > rather not do Dell but if that turns out to be the only way to > accomplish this I might accept that. > > I need (won't compromise on): > > Windows 10 Pro 64-bit > i7 processor or better (I don't know what the AMD equivalent would be > but I don't object to AMD chips) > At least 15.6" screen > At least 8 GB RAM > At least 512 GB HDD (I don't care if it's SSD or mechanical, but I > want all of that space) > LAN cable port > WiFi > At least 3 "old school" USB ports (some mix of USB 2 and USB 3; USB C > is nifty and all, but I'm not looking to replace my peripherals or > get a bunch of adapters). > HDMI port > VGA port (I have some old projectors and external monitors that I > don't want to spend $$ to replace; I probably could be convinced to > drop this requirement, at least for some users, if absolutely necessary) > Must have a TPM chip and UEFI BIOS (the latter seems to be standard > now but the former is often optional); these devices have to be > full-disk encrypted using Bitlocker > > I would prefer the processor speed to be 2.2 GHz or faster, but a 1.8 > GHz i7 is minimally acceptable. > > I would like an internal optical drive but it's not required. > > I don't care how much it weighs or how long the battery lasts or any > of that other stuff. > > I'm not going to be super picky on price, because the whole MWBE > thing is based on inflated prices anyway. > > (And BTW, I am not opposed to MWBE set-asides in principle, but I am > opposed to the situation that has been created, in which, because the > state mandates that we purchase from these companies, the companies > effectively face no competition and can therefore set absurdly high > prices for largely inferior products.) > > Thanks for any thoughts any of you may have. > > Ken Dibble > www.stic-cil.org > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: https://leafe.com/archives This message: https://leafe.com/archives/byMID/CACW6n4tptD=Twuhhuw=nfaqvuw_f9vngaw0sx4ozowsgrvg...@mail.gmail.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
